A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 398 Distributed Mage Tower

"What pre-job training? This is your grandmaster!"

Caroline and Andrei's faces contorted in pain: "What do you mean by 'teacher ancestor'?"

After Rorschach explained, Andrei scratched his head: "I'm sorry, Mage Caroline, you're too young. I thought you were here for an internship at the factory."

Caroline was satisfied with the simple and unpretentious apology. While Rorschach was still struggling with how to say "teacher's teacher" in Common, Caroline had already begun to insist that she was Rorschach's senior sister - they were both students of Master Cano, so there was nothing wrong with that.

The next guide was Andrei. After he gave a brief introduction to the steel plant, Caroline asked Rorschach about his mage tower again: "So, is this steel tower in the middle your mage tower?" She thought it was quite unique in its design.

Andrei shook his head: "This building serves the factory. The ground floor of the tower has a transmutation dust collector, the middle floor is the central control area, and the upper floors are the office area. However, there are other office areas closer to the accommodation area and canteen."

"So," Caroline concluded, drawing on Rorschach's evasive behavior, "Rorschach, you haven't built your own mage tower yet?"

Rorschach's mind raced, and he redefined the mage tower: "I am a mage. Look at all those towers; I led their construction. Aren't they 'mage towers'?"

Caroline immediately used a strangulation technique on her former student, causing Rorschach to fall headfirst into her arms. His neck was then firmly gripped, and he listened to the enraged lady's tirade while his cheek was pinched.

"Does the Mage Tower have a complete defense system? Does it have workshops for researching dangerous magic? Does it have an arcane garden for growing special plants? Alchemy rooms and workshops? A library for storing ancient texts? An observatory?"

"And most importantly, do you have the qualifications to run a school, to recruit apprentices, or to gather collaborators for magical research?"

"Are there really so many rules?" Rorschach gasped as he broke free from the strangulation, arguing, "Where are there any proper mage towers left these days? Look at the mage towers stationed all over the empire, aren't they all combinations of mages and towers? So tell me, are you going to stay or not?" Rorschach and Bart still possessed tower spirits, they had already won too much.

Caroline was still angry. She realized that she had been tricked by the students. She originally thought she could become a collaborating researcher at a legitimate mage tower, but she didn't expect that this place was a completely unqualified black factory with no proper facilities.

However, Caroline had nowhere to stay now, and she gritted her teeth: "I'm staying, and I'm going to build the mage tower myself!"

She wasn't trying to start her own sect, but rather to give Rorschach a proper mage tower.

Furthermore, after the tour, Caroline had a preliminary but feasible idea: "Now you have offices in two locations and three factories, and don't you find it troublesome to travel back and forth?"

That's right.

Caroline listed the places she had seen: "First, the workshop. You should move your valuable tower spirits elsewhere, then expand your workbench and set up more alchemy tables and storage shelves. Second, you need a sealed chamber to block the detection of divination spells, and a practice room to provide a sturdy and durable space for your apprentices and yourself."

Luo Xia chimed in, "In that case, we can follow the standards for explosion-proof workshops, using cement and steel plates as the main structure, and then solidifying the barrier magic."

"I currently have a laboratory for cultivating microorganisms inside the central tower. After expansion and the addition of greenhouses, it can be transformed into an 'Arcane Garden'."

Caroline approved of Rorschach's idea and continued, "Your biggest advantage is having a tower spirit and an ample supply of magic power, but your defenses are too weak and need upgrading. Also, the observatory can be set up on the mountaintop and combined with the divination room. Anyway, I know you're not good at either of those."

Andrei noticed a blind spot: "But these facilities aren't all together."

"What I mean is to connect all the rooms and facilities through portals with solidified magical effects to form a fully functional mage tower. Although they are not together in the real world, as long as the internal spaces are connected and can be visited by each other, they are one entity for the users inside."

Caroline began to seriously analyze the feasibility: "Even if the distance is not far, the teleportation array between the two cities will still require a lot of magic power after it is solidified. Fortunately, there is an extractor that can meet the needs."

"However, they lack a systematic defense unless you apply the same standard of defense to every facility. But you can stop intruders by suspending the portal's operation, and you can quickly find new spaces to replace damaged parts of the structure."

Furthermore, the location of a mage tower also affects the spellcasting within it. For example, the Storm Tower is built on the edge of the sea, exposed to the fierce winds and waves of the ocean, a place where "air" and "water" elements meet intensely. Casting "water," "air," and "electric" related Evocation and Transmutation spells here is more effective, but it has a negative effect on "fire" and "earth" related spells.

Fortunately, both factories have extractors and a large number of alchemy devices. All the facilities are close to the magic node and immersed in an environment full of ether, which can be said to have a buff to almost all spells.

In short, the "distributed" mage tower has both advantages and disadvantages. Rorschach, however, was satisfied with this idea.

"Professor Caroline is an expert in spatial magic and a top student under Master Cano. With you designing and building the teleportation system, this plan will surely be realized." Rorschach was quick to shower her with compliments.

But Caroline cautioned, "Permanent portals are very expensive!"

"It's alright, I've contracted fish farms and so many factories, I'm not short of money."

"Hiss, why so much adamantium?" An even more outrageous precious metal than mithril has appeared. In Rorschach's mind, this thing is similar to the rare earth metals of his previous life, but according to the cost list given by Ms. Caroline, it would take thousands of grams to build a single portal.

In other words, excluding labor costs, the raw materials alone for a single door could buy ten detached villas in Lancaster, where housing prices are skyrocketing, or two estates in the suburbs of the capital.

Ms. Caroline now estimates that at least thirteen panels need to be made.

In her design drawings, each room would be connected to the central hall, and a transmutation dust converter would need to be installed under the hall to continuously power the transmission system.

The door itself and the door frame together form a teleportation mechanism. When the door is closed, it is not connected; when the handle is turned, the magic circle inside the door is activated, and pushing it open completes the teleportation path. This minimizes the consumption of magic power and reduces the load when there is frequent entry and exit.

Luo Xia imagined that in the future, he might have to put up signs reminding people: Save energy, please close the door when you leave!

The entire door is powered by the hinge on the side of the door—made of a mithril alloy with high hardness and high magic flux, with magic power charging from bottom to top.

If all the work is completed, the three factories will be successfully connected, allowing Luo Xia and Andrei to travel back and forth between the two places quickly.

Caroline throws herself into anything that interests her, and the portal design was a prime example, utilizing her understanding of spatial magic and much of her alchemy knowledge.

Now there's one more crucial question for Rorschach: "We still need a place to house the Tower Spirit organization. Where do you plan to locate it? Still Lanster?"

Rorschach shook his head: "Not in this world."

(End of this chapter)